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"ners would without the least hesitation have adjudged the prize, but did not think themselves authorized to do so, "without your special permission, as one of the conditions, "the presenting the composition within such a time, had not "been complied with.

"The author has since avowed himself to be the Rev. J.. "W. Cunningham, M. A. of St. John's college.

"Dr. Pearce, Vice-Chancellor at the time when the ex❝aminers made their report, having heard that you were on "your passage to England, deferred writing, as he daily "expected to have a personal interview with you and thus "has devolved to me the office of communicating to you the "thanks of the whole University for your very liberal offer, "and their regret that your design has not been completely "carried into execution.

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Though I have not the honour of being known to you, "yet in admiration of your character as the munificent Pa"tron and Promoter of literature,

"I subscribe myself,

"With the greatest respect,

"Your very humble Servant, "FRANCIS BARNES."

"St. Peter's College, Cambridge,

"Jan. 19th, 1808."

It appears that Dr. Buchanan did not feel himself at liberty to make any decision upon the point stated in the preeeding letter, and that the University was unwilling to resume the official consideration of the subject. Dr. Buchanan, however, offered to bear the expense of printing Mr. Cunningham's work.

On the 10th of May and the 28th of June 1807, two sermons were preached before the University of Cambridge, by the Rev. Francis Wrangham, of Trinity College, and the Rev. John Dudley, of Clare Hall, pursuant to the proposal of Dr. Buchanan in the preceding year, on the translation of the Scriptures into the oriental languages. Two discourses on the same important subject were preached before the

University of Oxford,, on the 8th and 29th of November following, by the Rev. Dr. Barrow, of Queen's College, and the Rev. Edward Nares, of Merton College.. The two former of these sermons were published in the course of the year 1807, and the two latter early in 1808. All of them, with different degrees of ability and eloquence, and by various considerations and arguments, supported the duty and expediency of translating the sacred records into the principal languages of the East; and all strenuously maintained the general obligation of this country to attempt, by every wise and rational method, to promote the knowledge of Christianity in India. But the authors of these excellent discourses, like those of the first series of prize compositions, though a most able and efficient corps, formed the advanced guard only, if the expression may be allowed, of the main body which was now hastening to its support, and whose united exertions were eventually crowned with the most gratifying and decisive success.

Dr. Buchanan's Memoir on the expediency of an Ecclesiastical Establishment for British India, produced, as might be expected, a considerable sensation on the public mind. The subject was not only highly important, but it was new. The world had, indeed, heard much of East Indian commerce, policy, and conquests; but of East Indian religion, little or nothing. Now and then the name of a chaplain to the Company had been mentioned, and, still more rarely, that of a missionary to the Hindoos. But, generally speaking, the whole subject of the religion of India was little known, and still less regarded. Its European population was presumed, without thought or inquiry, to be sufficiently provided with the means of Christian instruction; and as to the natives, they were considered as a race so completely separated from ourselves, and at the same time so religious and even moral in their own way, that, with the exception of those who had heard something of the Danish mission on the coast of Coromandel, the idea of converting any considerable number of the Hindoos was either treated as altogether unnecessary, and even unjust, or deemed in the highest degree visionary

and impracticable. The admirable writings of Sir William Jones had illustrated the history, the antiquities, and the laws of India, and had excited some degree of literary and even political interest in favour of its native inhabitants; but the peculiarly Christian consideration of them and of their country was a topic which had hitherto been but incidentally noticed. In this state of things, a work like the Memoir of Dr. Buchanan, exclusively devoted to this momentous and unusual subject, and characterized by great boldness, decision, and ability, might naturally be expected to produce a powerful and various impression upon the public. The more religious part of it hailed this production as presenting facts and arguments of a most important nature, and as opening a boundless sphere of exertion to the newly awakened and expanding energies of Christian benevolence and zeal; while others, and those a numerous and respectable class, considered it as at best a rash and unauthorized publication, and even deprecated it as tending to excite dissatisfaction at home and disturbance abroad. The growing extent and influence of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and the anxiety which it had evinced to promote the translation of the Scriptures into the oriental languages, added materially to the displeasure and alarm of the persons last alluded to.

It was not long before sentiments and feelings of a hostile nature were publicly avowed; and it forms a very remarkable coincidence of events in either hemisphere, that while attempts were, as we have already seen, making at Calcutta to arrest, or at least to impede, the progress of Scriptural translation, and to restrain the efforts of Christian missionaries, a formidable attack was carrying on in this country, with a view to check the ardour which had been kindled in the minds of multitudes in favour of both those great and interesting objects, and to provoke the authoritative interference of government to extinguish at once their hopes of effectually promoting them. The attack in question originated in a pamphlet published in the month of October 1807, under the title of "A Letter to the Chairman of the East

"India Company, on the danger of interfering in the reli"gious opinions of the natives of India, and on the views of "the British and Foreign Bible Society, as directed to "India." This pamphlet, though at first anonymous, was shortly afterwards avowed by Thomas Twining, Esq. a senior merchant on the Bengal establishment; who announced it as only the precursor of a motion, which he intended to bring before the Court of East India Proprietors, for expelling from Hindostan all the Christian missionaries, who were then labouring in that extensive but neglected field; and for preventing the holy Scriptures from being circulated in the languages of the East. The alarm of this gentleman, which could excite so formidable an intention, was no doubt genuine and extreme; though, as it has been well observed, the changes which have taken place since the date of his publication, both in the religious state of India, and in the opinion of the public at large respecting the propagation of Christianity in the East, give to his distorted representations the air of irony and satire, rather than of grave complaint and serious expostulation. Mr. Twining's pamphlet was chiefly composed of partial extracts from the Reports of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and from Dr. Buchanan's Memoir, which undoubtedly indicated the wish and the design to promote the knowledge of the Gospel throughout the world, and, amongst other quarters, in which that knowledge was particularly needed, throughout the British dominions in India. This laudable intention Mr. Twining interpreted as evidence of a strong disposition to interfere, in some violent and unwarrantable method, with the religious opinions of the native inhabitants, and as exposing our eastern possessions to the most imminent and unprecedented danger.

With respect to the share of the British and Foreign Bible Society in this extraordinary charge, it is only necessary to refer to the able reply published by the Rev. Mr. Owen, in the month of December following, and to that part of his History of the Society, which relates to this controversy.

The attack of Mr. Twining upon Dr. Buchanan was founded partly upon some passages in his Memoir, in which he discusses, in the most calm and benevolent manner, the duty, the practicability, and the advantages of endeavouring to promote Christianity in India; and partly upon the misconstruction of one sentence, in which the acute sensibility of the former gentleman led him to imagine, that Dr. Buchanán, in expressing his opinion as to the expediency of coercing the contemptuous spirit of the Mohammedans, was desirous of exercising some species of compulsion with respect to the religious sentiments of our native subjects in general. The term thus used by Dr. Buchanan may perhaps be considered as unfortunate, and he himself, on being informed of the perversion which it had suffered, omitted it in a subsequent edition of his Memoir; but even as it originally stood, no one, who had read that publication with common attention and candour, could so far mistake the whole object of the writer as to suppose him guilty of the absurdity of recommending, that the natives of India should be converted to the Christian faith by force.

Notwithstanding the vague and unsatisfactory nature of this attempt to arrest the progress of Christianity in India, there were not a few, who, from the respectability of the quarter from which it issued, from ignorance or misconception of the subject, from mistaken views of worldly policy, from the want of any lively sense of the infinite value of the Gospel, and from a morbid dread of every thing which was pronounced by persons affecting local knowledge as likely to endanger the security of our eastern empire, were disposed to favour and support it.

The prejudice and alarm which began to be excited by Mr. Twining's pamphlet were increased by the publication of one, and subsequently of a second, by Major Scott Waring; who inveighed with even greater warmth and violence against the Bible Society, the missionaries in Bengal, and the Memoir of Dr. Buchanan; and, in addition to the misrepresentation of his sentiments which has been just referred to, discovered in his benevolent recommendation of

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